Sleep? Why bother…

19Mar

Apparently this is what my body and brain has decided. Sleep unnecessary.

I know that for real it has to do with my mental, emotional, and physical pain. All of those wrapped into one, split into pieces, kneaded into each other, and then rolled into a throbbing ball of oneness. I’m so on edge that one small scrape and I’m raw and bleeding profusely, figuratively.

I cried on the way to the grocery store this morning. Not because I had to go to the grocery store, not because I was worried about being able to afford the trip to the grocery store, not because I was afraid I was going to have an anxiety attack in the grocery store… I cried because I couldn’t not cry. I’m tired, I’m not sleeping, I’m worried about Hub and I’m worried about Butthead. I’m worried about myself, too. My grief is overwhelming every part of my life and I can’t seem to dig my way out of it.

Hub is agonizing over a job offer–in part because it might mean less flexibility and he worries that he won’t be able to come home if I need him–that he received on Friday. I’m worried for him because I don’t feel that the company was being up front with him…they kind of bait and switched the job position (which they apparently did to the guy before him, someone Hub knows). I am concerned he won’t have any backup on his work, and I’m worried because if this is how they treat potential employees, how do they treat current employees. But Hub is unhappy in his current job and looking for a way out. Our health insurance changed due to the buy-out, so he’s both unhappy with the new corporate owners and unhappy with their shitty health insurance. Unfortunately, the potentially new company has equally shitty health insurance…so that kind of cancels out the pro/con in that category. Now they’re not budging on a concession he asked about (a minor concession on their part!), so that might be the end of that. I only hope that his current corporate overlords don’t decide that he’s no longer needed before he finds something else.

Butthead is randomly puking again. I mean, it’s good news that she’s not persistently puking like the last episode where we ended up rushing her to the vet hospital and coming home with anti-vomit pills… But this randomly throwing up (twice in the last four days…one of which was this morning which was another reason why I was so upset) is so frustrating. We don’t know if she’s sneaking and eating bad things outside or has gastritis and so her stomach hurts her or what… We’re at the point where we’re acclimating her to a basket muzzle that she’ll have to wear anytime she’s outside so she doesn’t eat crap off the ground and make herself sick. It’s hard and sad to make her wear a muzzle because she’s a good dog, not aggressive, shouldn’t have to wear it. I know it’s uncomfortable and bulky and just plain weird for her, but we don’t know what else to do with her. We can’t figure out what is wrong with her. And if it’s that she’s eating stuff outside that’s making her sick, there’s nothing else we can do other than the muzzle. For the past month or so we’ve been out there with her every minute, following her and standing over her and making sure she’s not eating things. But with the snow and ice, and my physical capabilities being limited at this point…I couldn’t keep up with her and I think she might have eaten something that made her vomit last Thursday when I wasn’t standing over her. We just don’t know what to do with her… So I’m worried that she’s going to vomit again like the last episode. Ugh. So far it’s been these two random episodes and today I spent time on and off modifying the basket muzzle to try to use a quick-snap collar to hold it on her head versus the old-fashioned buckle which is a pain in the ass to get on and off of her, especially with her floppy ears and long hair.

Even though I’ve been feeling ultra shitty and exhausted, we had to do a bunch of things this weekend. Most of which we accomplished. Unfortunately, one of the things was cleaning up the caulk in our master shower which seemed to be growing mold behind the caulk at the joints of the floor and wall. Hub is not flexible, so he had trouble sitting on the floor and scraping at the caulk, so I did 90% of it. Which, of course, hurt my arms, shoulders, and hands more than they were already hurting. The end result, though, is that we need to call in a professional to look at our shower because this is the second time in a year that we’ve ended up with this problem. Last time my brother helped me strip and re-caulk the shower, but now we’re in the same place again… There’s something wrong if there’s mold and mildew growing behind the caulk, especially since we bought mold-resistant caulk. This all means that we don’t have a shower in our bathroom and we have to haul ass to the shower on the opposite end of the house…past all the windows in the front of the house and over the foyer area of the house. It also means we have to haul all our paraphernalia into the other shower, which is smaller than our master shower. It’s not a huge deal, it’s just more stress. And more stress in having to find someone who knows what they are doing to come into the house to fix whatever is happening. The stupid sub-contractor that our builder hired to do our bathrooms did not know what they were doing. They screwed several things up in our master bathroom and ruined a lot of our shower floor tiles by having to go back and chip out all the wrong grout they put in. So we were left with grout over top of grout, and chipped tiles. And the slope of the floor is really bad, which causes water to pool in different spots in the shower and leaves our grout with water stains where the water sits. It’s shitty and depressing and frustrating. That’s all in addition to whatever this caulk situation is.

I have my mammogram on Wednesday. We finally got our health insurance cards from Hub’s new corporate overlords. I opened the mail, found the card, and called for my appointment all within about ten minutes. The first they had was a week away (now this Wednesday) and I took the appointment. I am pretty paranoid about keeping up with my mammos, so I’m glad that it’s only about ten days overdue from the day I had it last year.

I was supposed to have a relaxing massage last week. I had it scheduled in between two trigger point appointments…I normally go to TP massage therapy once a month (ish). So I scheduled the relaxing massage exactly two weeks after one TP appointment and two weeks before the next TP appoint. And then it snowed, and my relaxing massage appointment got canceled. And I really really wanted it. I mean, not enough to endanger my therapist or myself, but I’m so disappointed. I knew this was going to be a difficult month (technically, it’s been a difficult year so far), so I had planned for the relaxing massage–which I never get–and then plans went pfffft. Since my massage therapist only works two days a week, there were no openings for me to do a make-up massage. I don’t know when I’ll be able to fit it in again.

I told T on Friday that I want this grief to have some kind of end date. But with every day, every month, it stays. It’s a solid burden that I carry with me every. This month is especially difficult as it’s the (one year) anniversary of Mom’s death. And with every calendar day I think of what I was doing on “this” day last year. How we had no idea what was coming. How we took her to an arboretum in the city trying to perk up her spirits…not knowing how soon it would get so bad. How it happened so fast. How I was late to Hub’s birthday dinner last year because I was with Mom and Dad helping them with something. How it was only days after his birthday that she was in the hospital and then hours later that she was gone. Grief has no end date. It plays by no rules. It doesn’t give a shit who you are or what you want. It lives and breathes and grows and growls and harps and hammers and changes and does whatever the hell it wants. And it sucks.

6 responses to “Sleep? Why bother…”

I’ve got no words for the grief, other than I am so sorry. I’m not sure grief ever ends, because love never does. We just, at our own pace, manage it to varying degrees as best we can. Your pain is tangible, even through the internet.

I’m sorry you missed your massage.

I’m not bragging, but Sadie bout never throws up. BUT! When we lived with my in-laws, she threw up four times in two months before we figured out what it was — the lawn care chemicals. I was thankful to have figured it out. If you can’t figure it out (and who can keep up with four paws?!?) I really do think you should put the muzzle on Butthead, even if it’s just to rule out the bad eats. It’s like so many other things they have to endure for their own safety.

I’m a big believer in making only moves for the better, so I can see why the job thing has you in knots. Maybe he should stay and keep looking, maybe he should take the new and keep looking, but definitely he should keep looking.

The mold thing IS an issue. We have a large main bath, and a fully tiled tub alcove with inadequate ventilation. I could not believe how quickly mold grew, because at our old Indiana house we had tile like that, and it was nothing like this place. I was in there just sprayin bleach every week like it was cool. It took me awhile to figure out that the old bathroom had southern exposure, which cut down on mold growth. We keep the shower curtain open when no one is here to visit, and we run the fan like whoa. That has helped substantially. I know a lot of people with shower doors struggle with mold I hope you get yours sorted. Surely your bathroom construction involved green board, because it’s relatively new, yeah?

I know the grief never goes away, I guess I just hoped it would let me breathe a little. Apparently I’m not managing it too well right now.

Le Moo has thrown up ONCE in the 5 1/2 years we’ve had her. She’s got a steel stomach. Our previous dog would randomly throw up, but it was always random through the years and not often. Butthead has had this kind of random issue every couple of months. It was the persistent puking episode that has me freaking out now every time she pukes. We had her on an enzyme powder for a while (months!) and she didn’t vomit at all…until the persistent vomiting episode. So we’ve now started her back on the digestive enzyme powder (which we stopped everything after the persistent vomiting episode and slowly added different things back in to make sure she wasn’t having a reaction to anything in particular) in the hopes it will help again. I’ve never had a dog that has puked so much in our life with them. I’ve got to make another modification to the muzzle, but I’ll be using it. Hub isn’t so keen on it, so I’m not sure he’ll use it, which kind of defeats the purpose, but…we’re still talking about the issue.

Hub took the job this afternoon. He’s not going to stop looking because this was more of a lateral move than he had hoped, so there’s still reason to keep looking. But at least he doesn’t have this “are they going to close my department and fire me” kind of feeling hanging over him.

The mold thing…ugh. It’s been nothing but trouble in this bathroom…and we do run the fan all the time in there, but I’m sort of wondering if it’s not strong enough. I always leave the glass doors open to the shower to dry out, but I don’t think Hub does. I’ll mention that to him, too. And yeah, there was green board…and some fancy water proofing under the tiles to prevent leaking. I just think the installers caused an issue when they dug out the “bad” grout and they screwed something up. We have a guy coming on Wednesday to check out our situation to see how he can help and what it’ll cost. Hopefully Hub will be working from home because I have my mammo and the timing might be cutting close…but this was when the guy was going to be in our area this week. We also have mold issues on our ceilings in some of our upstairs rooms. It randomly appears in the summer…we know the bleach trick. Hub has face masks and gloves and buckets and all kinds of stuff to deal with it. This spring we’re supposed to get an attic or insulation guy up into the attic to figure out WTF. I swear, mold and water issues follow me from house to house to house…

That mold situation is just SO unfortunate! And it follows you? Even worse! I hope the guy can get it sorted out inexpensively. That’s what I mean, when I wrote that our bathroom isn’t adequately vented — it has a fan, but maybe it needs more — another, or bigger. Or a window. Somethin. Our bathroom needs somethin.
I hope the enzymes work again. I really hope it’s something organic
I agree about the job, I think I’d chose the devil I know over ‘will I be fired?’ anyday. I’m glad he decided, and I wish him well as he continues to search.

I don’t know what the deal is with water and mold issues. Every house I’ve had (of my own, not w/parents) has had some sort of water and/or mold issue. Leaks, mold, mildew…I had hoped that having a new house would mean no more mold or water problems, and in this house we had our pipes burst during one of the really bad cold spells we had here. New house, burst pipes, water in the basement. Ugh. And then the spring under the house, and the need to spend THOUSANDS on trenches and pipes to carry the underground water away from the house…and now all the mold issues. Bleh. But yeah, we have a standard exhaust fan in that bathroom but the room is kind of larger than average. So maybe it needs an upgrade…or maybe we’re just screwed and will spend our lives bleaching the bathroom. *sigh* I feel your pain…the bathroom just needs SOMETHIN’.

I hope the enzymes work again, too. They’re made for dogs and were highly recommended. They’re USA sourced but I don’t think they do “organic” for the dog version. And yeah, we stopped all our lawn care stuff because she got sick after we had a lawn company in (2 different ones, actually, both “natural” lawn companies) come do stuff. So now we live with weeds and crab grass. 🙂

I think Hub is happy to have made the decision. Like I told him, it’s not a right or wrong decision…it’s what he feels he can live with the best. So he made his choice and we go from there. And he keeps looking for the job he really wants while he’s learning new things at this place. Such is life in the tech world, I guess! Thanks for the well wishes…I will pass them along!

No wonder you aren’t sleeping. You have a lot on your plate to worry about. I see you have a grasp on grief and understand that it never ends. I find it somewhat easier to remember the good memories and find something in my life that is beautiful and focus on that one thing. Not that I have “cured” my grief but it does make it easier to ride out the waves. I hope you get to the bottom of your shower issue. I love demolishing things and I could help you discover the problem 🙂 When we tore apart our shower the wall behind the part that was holding to the mold was soggy. Somewhere water was getting in behind the wall. Good luck!

I do try to find good memories, but right now it’s the harder memories that crowd my brain.

I generally enjoy demolishing stuff, but our house is just six years old, we shouldn’t HAVE to demolish a bathroom. I hope that the walls behind our tiles aren’t soggy or moldy, since they used a special water-proofing system to avoid just that. Tomorrow the bathroom guy comes to inspect, so we’ll see what he says, if anything…